Press Coverage
by honeycakehorse
Summary: Rita Skeeter outs Harry and Tonks in the Daily Prophet. Mrs. Weasley is not happy.


**Press Coverage**

"Harry Potter! Come down here this instance and explain this to me!" For a few minutes nothing could be heard. Then the sound of a door opening and of bare feet tapping down the stairs wafted towards the kitchen. Seconds later, a head with dark, tousled hair popped around the door and took in the sight before him with sleepy eyes.

Molly Weasley looked like a dragon ready for a fight. Her hands were pressed against her hips and her face was set in a frightening scowl. The only thing missing was the fire coming out of her mouth. Harry swallowed. What had he done?

Apparently, other people had wondered that as well. The patter of more feet could be heard in the hall and then the kitchen door swung open to reveal Bill, Remus and Tonks. Ron probably hadn't even woken from his mother's shouting. They all looked at Harry as if he knew what the reason for the early disturbance was, but he just shrugged his shoulders. He couldn't see a reason for this drama while they were still all in their pyjamas

He tried to be as polite as possible. "Explain what, Mrs. Weasley? I don't know what you are talking about."

Mrs. Weasley snorted dangerously which caused him to take a step back and collide with Remus. Tonks came forward and stood next to him. "Can't you tell us, Molly?" She saw the paper clutched in her hand. "Was there something in the newspaper?"

Mrs. Weasley's glared turned from Harry to Tonks. "Was there something in the newspaper?" Her voice was low. "YES, THERE WAS!" She took a deep breath. Tonks looked blown away. "I really can't believe you Nymphadora." Harry winced in sympathy at hearing Mrs. Weasley use that name, knowing full well Tonks hated it. "I would have thought you had more sense than this."

"Had more sense than what? Would you finally tell us what has you in such a snit?"

"This." She thrust that day's Daily Prophet under their noses. Tonks looked surprised for a moment, then snatched the paper out of her hand. When she read the caption on the first page she gave a low moan and handed the paper to Harry.

Harry looked at her perplexed, but already with a bad feeling in his stomach. If it was about Tonks and him, then... he looked at the paper...

_Boy Who Lived and Ministry Auror Discovered during Tryst!_

...and paled. He didn't even want to know what the article said, the headline was enough for him.

He was just contemplating whether he really wanted to read it when he felt an arm snaking around his waist. He looked up into Tonks' face and gave a tight smile.

The other two looked at each other strangely. Bill finally voiced their question. "What's going on guys? What has the Daily Prophet done now?"

Harry held the paper so Bill and Remus could read the headline. His head was spinning. This was no good. The relationship, he and Tonks had tried to keep quiet for months had come to the light and that in the worst way possible. He was only pulled out of his thoughts when he heard Bill stammer.

"You... you two?" He suddenly grinned and turned towards Harry. "How the hell did you manage to bag such a..."

"Bill! Behave yourself!" The attention turned again towards Mrs. Weasley. She was still scowling at Harry and Tonks. "I really can't understand you two. Don't you have any sense of decency? I don't even want to know what those photos the Prophet is talking about show."

"I would like to know."

"Didn't I tell you to behave, Bill?"

Harry was shocked at the mention of photos, but he still tried to calm Mrs. Weasley down. After all he didn't want to deal with her ire on top of the fall-out the article was going to create. "Before we can say anything about it, we will have to read the article." He threw a glance at Tonks. "Living room?"

She nodded. "Living room."

They both trudged out of the kitchen, closely followed by Mrs. Weasley, Bill and Remus. Tonks still had her arm around his waist and that calmed Harry down at least a bit. They both settled on the couch, while Remus and Bill each took on of the armchairs and Mrs. Weasley stood before them, folding her arms over her chest.

Tonks had the paper and she started to read aloud.

_"Sixteen-year old Harry Potter apparently isn't the choirboy everybody believes he is. While other boys his age moon over famous singer Celestina Warbeck or discover the first stages of young love with a girl their own age, our boy-hero has been seen with twenty-three-year old Ministry Auror Nymphadora Tonks."_

She paused. "Really, after all that time, you'd think they'd finally manage to get my name right."

Everybody jumped when she suddenly shouted at the paper. "Tonks! The name is Tonks! Not Nym... Nymphadora! Tonks!"

Harry leaned in to kiss her temple. "Yes, we know... but the paper can't answer you, Nymph." He ducked to avoid her slap and then prodded her to continue reading

_"How or when the two of them met is not known, certain however is that holding hands isn't the only activity the two of them engage in. The Daily Prophet has been passed visual evidence that our Boy Who Lived isn't a boy any longer."_

A whistle could be heard from Bill's seat, quickly followed by a slap, but Harry was almost too petrified to notice. That was exactly what he had been fearing since he had heard the word 'photo'. He could probably consider himself lucky that the Prophet hadn't printed the damn thing.

Tonks only tightened her arm around him and continued to read.

_"In this situation the question we have to ask is: Can such a relationship really be healthy? Can it have a future? Or is Nymphadora Tonks only after Harry for his fame? What can a woman in her mid-twenties find in a schoolboy?_

_After the previous disasters in his love life, has Harry finally found a woman who will not turn on him? As many of you may remember the Daily Prophet already reported about Harry's classmate, Muggleborn Hermione Granger, cheating on him."_

Harry groaned, he couldn't believe they had dredged up that non-existent romantical relationship again.

He tried to concentrate on something different. "Really, did they have to emphasise that Hermione is Muggleborn so much? No wonder Muggles have a bad name."

He wasn't surprised nobody listened to him and was instead concentrated on watching Tonks, except Tonks of course, who was busy watching him. He turned towards her. "What?"

"You never told me about Hermione and you."

Harry threw up his hands. Really, had the whole world gone mad? "That's because there's nothing to tell. Rita invented the whole romantic entanglement between Hermione, Victor Krum and me during the Tournament. She never did believe us when we told her we weren't together. Unfortunately, most people believed that rubbish." He threw a glance at Mrs. Weasley, who had the decency to blush at that statement.

Tonks nodded once, accepting his explanation and then continued to read.

_"An equally short-lived romance between Harry and the older Ravenclaw student Cho Chang only brought heartbreak for Harry when his girlfriend ditched him in a life or death situation."_

Harry snorted. "Oh, please. It was hardly life or death. Expulsion or staying, yes, but that's just melodramatic." Really, that paper got more ridiculous every time he read it.

"Well, you are reading the Prophet. What do you expect? Astute, critical and well researched articles?"

"Ehm, yeah sorry. Forgot what I was talking about for a moment. Go on." He leaned a bit closer against Tonks.

_"Have all these disappointments with girls his own age caused Harry to look for love in somebody almost a decade older than him? Or is he just now realising his yearning for a mother figure?_

_As everybody knows, Harry Potter lost his parents as an fifteen-month year old baby. He can't even remember his mother's love which saved his life from You-Know-Who. Can it be that he searches for this love in the arms of an older woman?"_

"Older woman! I'll give that bitch older woman." Tonks seethed. "She makes it sound as if I'm McGonagall's age." She paused. "Ew. I didn't want to think about that."

"She could be right with the mother complex. You really are quite a bit older than Harry, dear. And that doesn't look too good."

Tonks glared at Mrs. Weasley. "Quite a bit? Excuse me, but I think I would remember if I had had a son when I was seven!"

"Mrs. Weasley, really, what would I need another mother for? After all, I have you." Harry knew that appealing to Molly Weasley's feelings was the easiest way to get out of this fight, even if it was a bit of a dirty trick. However, it worked. Mrs. Weasley kept silent. She only pursed her lips and motioned Tonks to go on.

_"Furthermore, we have to ask ourselves how the couple can meet with Harry still at Hogwarts? Surely Headmaster Albus Dumbledore can't condone a sexual relationship taking place between a student and an adult at Hogwarts. However, so far we have seen little evidence of the Headmaster preventing this._

_There can be no question that in a coeducated school, conflict and tension between the sexes is unavoidable, still the Headmaster has hindered any attempts on the side of the Ministry to introduce Sexual Education classes."_

"You know, I can't believe I'm saying this. But if this really is true, then I agree with the Ministry." Harry could feel eight pairs of eyes on him. "What?"

"You really want to learn about sex from one of the teachers?" Bill's look of incomprehension was mirrored in all their faces.

"Well, not exactly about sex itself, but more about the basic stuff. You know in Muggle primary school we all get the where-babies-come-from speech, and it would be good to at least know the most important stuff, like protection and stuff..." He floundered. "Come on, you guys know what I mean!" He couldn't understand that wizards just laughed when confronted with the concept of safe sex.

It seemed that because they were wizards they thought themselves to be invincible against all diseases. And pregnancies weren't that common either, as Hermione had once explained to him. Something about wizards having a longer life expectancy and consequently a lower fertility rate. Of course, the counter example to this was sitting just opposite him.

Tonks patted his hair. "Yes, of course we do... I'll just go on then, right?

_Instead he relies on hear-say for students to know about basic biology and protection from illnesses as well as pregnancies. If we can't keep our children from engaging in sexual activity (a proposition to separate Hogwarts into one school for girls and one for boys has been shot down by the Headmaster as well), we should at least feel secure in the knowledge that the teachers do the everything possible to prevent them from making uninformed choices._

_We only hope that despite this irresponsible behaviour, our favourite boy-hero will not find himself in a situation where he would be pushing a pram soon. After all what could be more prestigious than carrying the Boy Who Lived's baby?"_

Tonks snorted. "Oh, yes. I can't imagine anything more prestigious than running around with a round belly and telling everybody that the Boy Who Lived knocked me up. Shesh. Really." She shook her head.

_"Harry, on behalf of the staff of the Daily Prophet we hope that you don't waste your heart on somebody who is only after your fame and in the end breaks your heart._

_Rita Skeeter."_

Harry wasn't surprised. "Who else? I really wonder sometimes what this fixation of her means." He paused. "Eww. No, I don't want to know."

"So, let's get back to the topic at hand." Mrs. Weasley took hold of the conversation once again. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Harry tried to think about a suitable reply, but couldn't come up with anything. What was there to explain really? Tonks and he had been together since the summer and that was it.

Apparently Tonks thought the same. "Nothing. There is nothing to explain. Just because Rita writes about it for all the world to see, doesn't mean that it's anybody else's business."

"Mrs. Weasley's scowl threatened to take over her face once again, but Harry admired Tonks when she held her gaze.

The staring contest was interrupted with Remus clearing his throat. "Molly, I think she is right." Mrs. Weasley's glare turned towards him, but he paid her no heed. "After all, even if Rita Skeeter doesn't respect their privacy, we should."

Mrs. Weasley opened her mouth, and Harry already feared a tongue-lashing, but then she closed it again. Harry was amazed. He had never seen her act like that. She pursed her lips. "Of course, Remus. We should all go to breakfast." She turned around. "Are you coming?"

Remus himself looked a bit amazed as well. Harry thought he probably had never won an argument with Molly Weasley. Wordlessly, he followed Mrs. Weasley out the door. Bill was just behind them, but as he walked through the door, he turned back around and winked at Tonks and Harry. "Don't take too long or Mum is probably going to come and fetch you." With that, he closed the door.

As soon as he heard the click, Harry relaxed against the couch. He leaned his head back and sighed. "I'm sorry, Tonks. I really didn't want that." He turned his head to look at her. He never quite got over how good she looked, no matter what she was doing, even when she had just stumbled over another chair and blushed beet red. At the moment she was chewing her bottom lip, observing him anxiously... and looking absolutely adorable.

Then she smiled. "Don't worry about it. And it isn't your fault anyway. After all we knew that somebody was going to find out eventually.

Her arm was still around him and Harry wound his round her waist as well. He snuggled closer. "I just didn't think that it would quite such a spectacular announcement. Really, it surprises me again and again what kind of rubbish that woman can come up with."

Tonks kissed the top of his head. "At least they didn't print the photos."

Laughter bubbled up in Harry. He leaned his head back, so he could watch Tonks' face. "That's just what I thought." He leaned in and lightly brushed his lips against hers. At least they wouldn't have to hide themselves from everybody else in the house anymore. Even if Mrs. Weasley was probably going to be a nuisance and not give them a minute of time alone.

All the more reason to take advantage of this chance.

He deepened the kiss and once again enjoyed the feeling of her tongue against his. In his mind there was nothing like kissing Tonks, warm and comfortable, but at the same time exciting and new every time they did it. He couldn't get enough of her. They continued for minutes, only taking small gulps of air in between and then pressing their lips together again.

Tongues playing with each other, teeth nibbling on lips and arousal almost threatening to overtake Harry, he moaned disappointedly when Tonks pulled away from the kiss, her lips flushed and a bit breathless. She looked at him searchingly and then asked: "Think we should ask if we can have copies of those photos?"

END


End file.
